Covid: 16,000 coronavirus cases missed in daily figures after IT error

A technical glitch that meant nearly 16,000 cases of coronavirus went unreported has delayed efforts to trace contacts of people who tested positive.

Public Health England (PHE) said 15,841 cases between 25 September and 2 October were left out of the UK daily case figures. They were then added in to reach Saturday's figure of 12,872 new cases and Sunday's 22,961 figure.

PHE said all those who tested positive had been informed. But it means others in close contact with them were not.

The issue has been resolved, PHE said, with outstanding cases passed on to tracers by 01:00 BST on Saturday.

The technical issue also means that the daily case totals reported on the government's coronavirus dashboard over the past week have been lower than the true number.

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Source: BBC News, 5 October 2020